The four singles released thus far from Gojira's seventh album Fortitude – Another World, Born For One Thing, Amazonia and Into The Storm – are almost devoid of electric guitar solos in the traditional form, but that's not to say we aren't in for some noteworthy lead work from Joe Duplantier and Christian Andreu.
In a new interview taken from the June 2021 issue of Guitar World, Duplantier explains how he wound up playing the solo of the album's seventh track, The Chant, with one of his guitar's strings in his mouth.
“I played the solo for [that track] on my first electric guitar,” Duplantier explains. “It was a Gibson Flying V that a friend of mine sold to me when I was a kid. There was a problem with the ground, and we found a solution: I attached an old string to the bridge and put the string in my mouth and it grounded it.
“For some reason there was a ghost in that guitar. There was this hum, so I put a leash on that guitar and put a string in my mouth when I was playing the solo. [Laughs] I had a blast.”
Elsewhere in the interview, the frontman discusses the pick-scrape technique that's become a calling card of the band's sound.
“My approach to guitar is very physical... but not sexual,” he laughs. “I have a physical approach to instruments; sometimes I'll pound on the guitar and it'll go ‘boom’ and I'll use that in a song.
“That technique wasn't premeditated,” he continues. “It happened live on tour in 2002 or 2003. The catalyst was the song Embrace the World [from 2003's The Link]. Towards the end of the song there's a riff with a guitar slide.
“When we were playing live, instead of using my left hand to recreate the slide, I wanted to use my right to see if I could simulate a similar sound. I was doing this weird movement with my right hand: scraping the skin of your thumb of the strings. If you have some distortion on you will get that sound.”
Gojira's seventh studio album Fortitude arrives April 30 via Roadrunner Records.
Check out the full conversation, as well as brand-new interviews with Greta Van Fleet, Adrian Smith and Ritchie Kotzen, Tetrarch and more in Guitar World Issue 539. Head over to Magazines Direct to pick up a copy.
